


impasto

by Anonymous



Category: Countdown to Countdown (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Universe, Flowers, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, M/M, Painting, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 21:46:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11472324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Iris's calloused fingers gently trace the brush strokes, his touch so feather-light that he can barely even feel the paint.Iris has fallen in love with a painting.





	impasto

**Author's Note:**

> i just really love CTC and all the flowery stuff in it, so i thought i'd play around with Iris's demi-flora ability. 
> 
> [ inspired by an answer velocesmells gave to an ask: "fun fact, lilies are also used for purity. but that just doesn’t apply for Lillium". ](http://ctccomic.tumblr.com/post/161914020475/im-probably-waaaay-off-but-could-lilliums)

Iris's calloused fingers gently trace the brush strokes, his touch so feather-light that he can barely even feel the paint. He closes his eyes, allowing himself to savour this moment, to savour the silence that makes way for a thundering heartbeat, shaky breaths coming out in a torrent, and for the tentative touch that allows him to savour the fine lines of the painting. 

His fingers have tread this familiar path before. The lines on his fingers can remember the colours on the canvas: a baby blue sky, so bright and soft that it makes Iris pine for a summer he's never seen; a garden of greens in shades of grass, gemstone, willow tree; hushed yellows that whisper stories of setting suns, and Iris's favourite: white. 

His fingers stutter where they know the white is. 

He can't bring himself to touch it. 

It's like this every time. Ripped from his reverie, Iris steps back, his shuddering breaths stilling to a halt as he look, fully, at the painting.

He looks at the flowers, the graceful pink dahlias, whose petals curl towards the corner of the canvas. Looks at the branches of cherry blossom that bud and twine, the dark bark curling around a pale arm. Then, there's the marigolds, so bright and full, seeming as though they're bursting off the canvas, looking like suns and stars in the morning sky. Then, there are the bleeding heart flowers, who run across the top of the canvas, raining down tears of white which fade into the soft clouds of the summer sky. 

Then, there's him. The white, the lily, the pure. 

 _No_ , Iris shakes his head, _pure isn't the right word._

The impasto technique used in the rest of the painting isn't present on the man: his skin is smooth and soft, pure as daybreak, and in contrast to the rest of the painting where the flowers burst from the canvas, the man appears to retreat, seemingly hiding among the bush of flowers. His chest is barely visible beneath the marigolds, and his thick and muscular neck rises from them, seemingly out-of-place. His arms extend towards the bottom corners of the canvas, the cherry blossoms twirling and twining around them. One of this hands is upturned, crushed flower petals sitting lax in his palm, and where the other is downturned, he appears to be concealing something beneath them. But, the most striking part of the man, are his eyes. 

Those eyes that follow Iris around the room, that watch as he leaves and enters. Those eyes that pierce and prod and pull at every inch of Iris' skin. Those eyes that reflect Iris, that reflect flames: in an otherwise pure painting, Iris sees darkness. A stroke of black among a sea of white. The only eyes that, despite their watchful darkness, give him the time of day. 

And god, is Iris in love: you can never take "falling in love with a painting" too literally, but, somehow, Iris has. 

He wants to know if that skin really feels that smooth. He wants to know if that hair, like a sunset, is warm and silky. He wants to know if those lips are as plush as they look

And so, for the first time, Iris reaches out and touches the white, his touch searching, pulling, curious. And before he can stop himself, Iris is tugging, a flash of blue blinding him, and god, is that the bright and soft light of a summer he's never seen? 

But before he knows it, those flowers really do burst out of the canvas. Marigolds spill onto the floor, pulling with them the dahlias and bleeding heart flowers, the garden of green stems tumbling after them in a tangle. Last to fall is the angel, the white, the lily. 

Iris stumbles back, eyes wide, watching as the man grunts and shifts, that sunset hair falling in waves over his eyes. His eyes, his eyes, _his eyes._

The cherry blossoms around his arms trail from his shoulders back into the painting, the dark bark like black wings chaining him the canvas. The crushed petals in the man's hands have fallen in a pile by the man's feet, scattering like light against the wooden floor. 

Iris holds his breath, transfixed by his skin, by the shaking hands, one still downturned on the floor, the other shaking, the man staring at his empty palm where the crushed petals once sat. 

"I-" Iris begins, finding the words fail him. He swallows the words. "Hello?" He tries again. 

The man looks up, and Iris finds himself bereft of words, of breath. Those eyes, those flames, reduce Iris to ash. They narrow, growing ever darker if even possible, waning before waxing in realisation. 

"You!" The man exclaims, his voice deep, cracking from misuse. That shaking hand comes up to grasp at his muscular neck, transfixed by the notes that fell from it. 

"Iris," Iris tells him, and the man nods, his hand falling from his neck back to the floor where he attempts to stand, but the cherry blossoms hold him in place. Those wings damning him to the ground. The man looks, confused, craning his neck backwards, those fiery eyes trailing the curl of branch around his arm, up his shoulders, and into the canvas. 

"Who am I?" The man asks, his gaze falling to the floor in defeat. "Who am I?" He repeats, his voice barely above a whisper. 

Iris is taken aback by the question: how is he to know who the man is? Watching as the man continues to stare at the floor, Iris swivels around the room as if searching for the answer, until he finds it in the form of a small golden plaque just below the painting: _Lillium_.

"Lillium," Iris repeats, and as he does so, the man's head snaps up, his eyes wide. 

"Lillium," the man repeats. " _Yes_ ," he says, body falling lax in relief. "That is me," he looks up to Iris with a soft smile, and suddenly Iris finds himself wondering again: is that skin really so soft? That hair, silky? Those lips, plush?

Iris leans in for an answer, his calloused fingers trailing over a sharp jawline. His skin feels feather soft beneath his touch. Iris flicks that sunset hair back to gaze into his eyes, and god, is it silky smooth. 

Gaze falling upon those lips, Iris hesitates, looking back into Lillium's eyes. But before he ask, Lillium leans forward against the chains of. cherry blossom, giving Iris his answer: his lips feel like petals.

Iris pulls away with a gasp, heartbeat thundering, breath stuttering. 

He smiles at Lillium, dizzy. But, like the rain from the falling in the baby blue summer sky, Iris's smile falls. 

Lillium's hand starts to shake again as he raises it and places it on his head, sunset petals falling to the ground as he does so. His skin swirls as twirls, moonlight petals covering every inch. It happens so quickly, too quickly. 

Lillium smiles softly at Iris, soft white petals falling to the ground as he does so. He brings that closed fist into his lap, slowly opening it as he does so, revealing a single black iris sitting in what was once his palm. 

And with that last motion, Lillium shatters into supernova of petals. 

The sunset pink petals float to the ground, the white cascading down like a waterfall to land like a layer of snow upon the marigolds, the dahlias, the cherry blossoms. 

A single black iris lays, stark and dark, among the scatter of lily petals, and before his eyesight blurs with tears, the last thing Iris sees are the bleeding hearts falling mockingly from the canvas. 


End file.
